[cujo]

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/156641.html

[Redbone]

It's a good, honest review.  I have struggled with the same issues.  My conclusions are fairly similar except for the midrange.  

It is my experience that the RM40s must be bi-amped.  They need A LOT of power down low, and even then the bass does not have impact, but it is well defined.  Without bi-amping the cones can affect the Neo's and FST negatively.  That is what the reviewer missed.  Get them on different circuts, number one.  Also I'll bet that the reviewer was compensating for the bass response by backing off the pots, which is a mistake in my opinion. This just makes things worse.  I use the pots ONLY to level adjust the Neo Panels with the FST and then set the bass/mid balance  by adjusting the gain on the amps.  Works great and sounds great.  If someone isn't getting great sound out of the Neos and FST, they're doing something wrong IMO.  Getting really impactful bass, yeah, that is tough.

[mcrespo71]

I thought it was a thoughtful review.  Though I've heard the RM40's only twice, I don't recall any peakiness to the sound, so I can't corroborate any of his negative tone.  Nonetheless, the review was well written and it appeared he tried to get them to work in his room.  Not every speaker will satisfy every person, so I don't think this was a bad review.  A bad review would be- "The RM40's suck"- with no substantiating evidence.  At least this guy explains why they weren't for him.

Michael

[zybar]

Redbone,

I am not bi-amping my 40's and I don't feel like I a missing anything.  Of course, that is why I went from my tube amps to the Rowland 201's.

The Rowlands put out 500 watts into 4 ohms and can peak at over 1200 watts when necessary.

Do the 40's have the ultimate slam and dynamics?  Nope.  But if you want that, just add a sub(s).  I too agree that I expected a little more ooomph from such a large speaker.  But over time, I have come to love the bass that they do produce.  It is clean, detailed, and extended.  It just doesn't slam you in the chest (but my Sliverline Sonata II's didn't do that either until I added dual REL subs).

I recently added a solid state preamp (North Star) in order to try some balanced cables.  The speakers immediately pointed out the faults of the preamp (sibilant, splashy high's, unfocused sound stage, not very musical).  As soon as I put back in the Placette preamp, th esystem was much better.

I have already used a variety of gear on the 40's.  I've learned they pretty much play what they are fed - nothing more, nothing less.

The 40's can be a big pain in the ass to setup, but they really can reward the listener once all the hard work is done.

George

[Horsehead]

.If someone isn't getting great sound out of the Neos and FST, they're doing something wrong IMO. Getting really impactful bass, yeah, that is tough.    
 

I would say Redbone nailed it with that statement.  While the bass I got from the 40s was tight, extended, and well defined, it definitely lacked impact and realism.  I say this after listening to the SP Tech Continuums for a little over a week.  I don't want to get into mentioning another product in the VMPS forum, but I didn't realize the bass impact I was missing with the 40s.  The two 8" drivers from this "monitor" put out the deepest, cleanest, and most impactful bass I ever had in my room- and this is with them placed 4 feet out from the front wall.

I always attributed the lack of bass impact to my room.  If I didn't keep the 40s close to my front wall room boundries, the bass really got anemic.  A couple of feet out into the room to improve imaging and sounstage and the bass disappeared.  I don't think it was a power issue either as I used both the Pass X350 and Rowland 201.

I totally disagree with the reviewer's comments about the midrange.  The 40s midrange could melt you in your chair with their openess, smoothness, detail, and musicalness.  The 40s will expose any flaws elswhere in the system, so perhaps they were revealing something else that was wrong with his gear or room.  

One again it just proves that speakers and this hobby are personal choices and not everyone will always agree- in the end it what makes the individual happy- not people reading a review.

[Juan R]

I have problem with one of  my ampzillas, I sent the card and switch to be fixed, and at present I am using a pair of IRD, and  have the same findings, harsh mid and no bass, in my opinion you need a lot of power. And your pre as well IC can make a difference in the system

[_scotty_]

The reviewer failed to mention the brand and model of digital SPL meter
he used for his measurements and if the meter was used in A weighted,C weighted, or unweighted mode. No complete response curve was referred to and no measurement was made in the troublesome midrange area.
How big was the peak and what frequency did it occur at. The measured response of the reviewers new prefered speakers is drastically different from the RM40's. It is non-flat showing a declining response curve with increasing frequency. His equipement may have unrecognized problems
that the flatter response curve of the RM40's did not help. These are some of the questions that are unaddressed in the review. It could have been
more rigorous with more complete measurements.

[Ravi]

Scotty,

The reviewer didn't refer to any measurements because there are none.  The manufacturer has never provided them to anyone.  Only an independant source, Dennis Murphy, has done measurements of the RM1, and they were far from flat.  

Also speaking from personal experience, I've never bothered to do full frequency response graphs on speakers I didn't like.  I simply got rid of them as fast as possible.

But thats just my view on the matter.  I thought it was a very honest review.

[vpolineni]

the reviewer also mentioned this:
"Brian, I did experiment with the putty. In-room response, using a test tone CD and digital dB meter, bass was "down" -6 dB @ 45Hz.
Removing small "thumb nail" sized pieces (from the original amount) only made the bass loose & slightly boomy.

BTW, the stridency was noticed (and commented on) by several audiophile & non-audiophile friends alike. "

[zybar]

Not trying to defend either camp, but it is absolutely possible that the reviewer heard what he heard even though this is very different from what a lot of VMPS owners experience.

I have heard numerous speakers in my room and heard them elsewhere in different rooms with different equipment and thought "Man, are these really the same speakers?"  The differences were that great.

If my initial listen was at the really bad sounding location, I might have bypassed the speakers all together.

At the end of the day, who cares if a person doesn't like the 40's?  Like every review on AA, Audiogon, or AC it is only as credible as the reviewer.  Unless you know the reviewer or their system, how much stock can you really put in the review?  Since I rarely know the reviewer, I look to see if there are any trends (positive or negative).  If enough people keep hearing things the same way, there is probably a good chance that I will hear the same thing.

Just my two cents...

George

[ctviggen]

I think the review is fine, although I find it hard to believe that the bass would be down -6 db at 45 hz.  This indicates to me that there's something wrong in the room or what he's doing.  That's nowhere near the published 3db point of the speakers.  

Each person has to decide whether the speaker is right.  If he didn't like it, he didn't like it.  (I did notice that he liked Hales and B&Ws -- both of which I think are overrated, especially Hales.)

[audiochef]

Yes it is an honest and polite review.

There is an issue with the midrange. The problem is that they are ultra revealing. I've struggled with glare on certain soprano recordings and this  really  bugged me. I could'nt figure out what was causing it untill I listened carefully through headphones and even listenend to these discs in  my  car . The glare is inherent in the recordings and emphasized  through these speakers. In my opinion , most of these recordings are inadequantly mastered.  There are recordings done right, Patricia Petibon and Ruth Ann Swenson (positively golden) to name two.
Other than in this region of the midrange , I'd  have to disagree with the rest .
Non musical ? Does this mean dynamic and truthful ?

As for the bass. In my smallish room 18 by 13, depth is very good . Not as deep as Rm2s or even the tower twos , but ample. I never long for a sub.

[flintstone]

I thought the review did not jive with a post he had made at the Audiogon forum. After reading a few other posts he has made at Audiogon I think I will take his review with a large grain of salt.

See my post to his review at the asylum (member:sogood). I am not an RM40 owner but do own a couple of pairs of older VMPS model speakers so I thought his -6db at 45hz was a little hard to beleave (my old 626's go that low).

While my main speakers are no longer VMPS I do still follow the brand somewhat and visit this forum for the updates.

Dave

[BrunoB]

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/156641.html

I had a similar  stridency problem in the midrange with my 626R.
I solved it by replacing the fiberglass in the mid subenclosure by  polyester stuffing (Fiberfill or Polyfill).

Bruno

[jgubman]

Seems honest enough, but contrary to my experiences. Personally at CES I hated the sound from the Tyler Acoustics Linbrook monitors, but my friend loved them. We were both listening to the same material at the same time, in the same room in almost the exact same spot (ok, he was about 1' to the left of me...).

I though they sounded a little "muddy" and colored in the midrange and he thought they sounded dead-on. I know his opinion is shared by tons of people both here and on the asylum.  There's no accounting for taste...

In my own personal experience w/ RM-40s in a concrete basement, I don't think they sound the least bit strident. They don't sound anywhere near as good as they did the few times I heard them in Big B's LEDE room (especially the bass, wow, talk about getting bass right, go listen to them in Brian's room), but they sound much better than anything else I've had down there.

As for being -6db at 45hz, he can't be serious. I don't think my LRC is -6dbs at 45Hz, and I can personally guarantee that my 40s aren't.  I've measured them in the past and aside from a nasty room mode centered around 80hz, they've put out very strong output all the way down to 20hz. In my notes (I've kept room-repsonse notes in order to measure the effects of each round of room treatments I do), I do see a consistent drop-off btwn 25hz-20hz, but not much. Hell, in listening sessions my friend has asked me if I had the subwoofers turned on. The -6db assertion is clearly either plain wrong or room-related.

[Brian Cheney]

I hate anonymous reviews, particularly bashings.

The reviewer now claims to own Prodigys the rated cutoff of which is 28Hz.
He didn't get any first octave out of them in his room either and bought two subwoofers and now likes the sound.  The RM40's would have benefitted from the subs equally, and the whole review is exposed as a crock.  

Why people go on the Web with such self-contradictory blather is beyond me.

If any VMPS owner has a similar problem they are free to contact me.  And they always do.  The reviewer did not and won't say why.  If he won't identify himself and from whom he bought the speakers in the first place I have nothing further to say other than the review deserves to be ignored.

[Rob Babcock]

I can see where you're coming from, Big B, but I don't think that anonymity always invalidates a review.  If I was posting some fairly casual details on my experiences with a product, I wouldn't feel I had to justify myself (explaining my associated equipment ad infinitum, trying to prove my competence to arrive at my own opinion, etc etc).  It may diminish the weight others will give you, but that's the risk you take.

The review wasn't a hatchet job, either.  Maybe the guy has a history or hidden agenda I'm unaware of (I don't frequent AA).  And I'll concede that "damning by faint praise" is a shop-worn Troll Tool.  Certainly he could have mentioned the dealer he bought them from without compromising anonymity.

Er, okay, I think I just talked myself into agreeing with you, Brian!     Ignore the rest!

[andy_c]

I'm not a VMPS owner, but I will likely buy a pair of RM-2s after my move in a couple of months.  My impression of this guy, based on simple gut feel and nothing more,  is that he may not be legit.  I perceive that his actions are inconsistent with his words and his way of presenting himself.  For example, he seems to go out of his way to give the appearance of being polite, reasonable and logical.  He obviously knows his way around the audio message boards.  Yet if he really were so logical and reasonable, the place he'd go to get help on his room placement and tuning problem is right here.  But he didn't do that.  Instead, he posted a negative review after he supposedly sold his speakers.  Now that his speakers are gone, there is of course no way to verify any specific info about them.  It just sounds to me like a "My dog ate my homework" kind of thing.

[JoshK]

I always feel sorry for people like Brian, who is a great designer and who's welfare relies upon good customer feedback and word of mouth.  But in the end he had issues with his setup, even if he did not wish to consult the network of people who could have helped him resolve some of these issues.

In my own experience though, sometimes, especially with troubling rooms (I have had my RM40's in three rooms now), the 40's can require lots of patience.  4 months was probably not enough time for break-in, tuning, etc if the room was more difficult to work with giving this was his first pair of 40's.  But ultimately if he was not happy with all the tweaking and tuning needed to make them sing then they are probably not the speaker for him.  

With some rooms however, very little tuning needs to be done.  IMO, this really sounds like a bass issue and the rest of the problems he had were confounded by the bass issue.  Given his verbage with the bass matching, I suspect he was matching mid/high levels with a bass peak his room exhibited and thus had a suck out in other lower octave frequencies. Why do I think this? Because it has happened to me before, and trial and error helped me realize this, but I am a patient person so time and a lot of listening kept me from overtuning.  

Lastly, I kind of feel that his stridency in the midrange is probably being misaligned to the speakers, where it likely is the fault of a slightly microphonic tube in his source.  I am guessing, of course, but it seems possible, and I have had similar issues with tube equipment on my 40's before, and I have had quite a number of tube pieces roll through my system.  A blessing/curse with the hyper revealing midrange of the 40's.

[John B]

Is it a good review?  As far as it goes to relate a personal experience with speakers, it's fairly detailed and does describe the user's subjective experience.   Would it be helpful to me if I were looking for information regarding the relative merits or demerits of a speaker...no.   What it does is promote the one area where VMPS speakers get a bad rep...upper frequency brightness/hot sound.   Personally, and this is after only 2 days with my 626Rs, I've found I can't push the pots to hot/bright even by jacking them up past the 2 o'clock position.  And this is without any room treatements or stand fill.   My room has raised wooden flooring and plush carpeting, which is good for sound, but I've got plastic slat blinds and a brick fireplce on one side and mostly bare wall and overstuffed lazy boy recliner on the other.   Not the perfect room by any means.  

I did have some issues when I first set the speakers up, imaging was poor and the balance of the soundstage leaned left instead of centered.   After trying different speaker positions and toe in angles, I still couldn't get it to sound "right".   I contacted my VMPS dealer (Hi John) and with his help tried out a few things to where it's nicely dialed in now.   Is it perfect?  No, there's still work to be done, but as is, it's more "natural" sounding than any of the high priced Dynaudio speakers that I've had in the past.   Were there any "brightness/hot" sound coming from the 626R's my wife would not be able to be in the room, she's very sensitive to that  type of sound.   Last night we held a conversation in the listening room, while a jazz CD was playing.    I've never been able to have any of my Jazz music playing while she's in the room, and holding a conversation at a volume level where the music sounds good to me...never, until now.   So what's going on with the wide gap between my experience with the mid panels and this reviewer?   As a guess I'd say room.   The other big difference, is I contacted the dealer and the mfg. for advice.   This guy chose to do it on his own, perhaps because he's a long time audiophile who figures he's got all the answers.   If it ever comes to that point with me, somebody please slap me.   You're never so smart that you can't benefit from someone elses knowledge and experience.